Search - Atlantic Starr :: Ultimate Collection

Falls Short in its Promise as the Ultimate Collection

Ho Chi Minh | Texas | 08/06/2010

(3 out of 5 stars)

"the songs are well-chosen, for the most part, but what could have been a great, cross-licensed compilation is undermined by the poor mastering, and some poor choices in choosing edited songs; mastered by Erik Labson, who is one of the worst mastering engineers, his work involves extreme compression, resulting in a loud, brittle sound, that wears on the listener...turn up "secret lovers" on this disc, you can hear static in the background, Labson turned one of the smoothest love songs into a cacophonic mess.."send for me" is edited, the song ends abruptly, and "secret lovers" does, too, so you miss the beautiful instrumental finish...while this compilation includes hits from all of Atlantic Starr's career, the last 2 major hits, "my first love" (#1 R&B, 1989), and "masterpiece" (#3 pop and R&B) are lyrically weak, and musically uninspired...best choice is "secret lovers...best of" on A&M, it sounds much better, and has unedited songs, then round out your collection with "all in the name of love", stay away from this sonic catastrophe"

Truly A Masterpiece

Michael Kerner | Brooklyn, New York U.S.A. | 01/02/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"When it has came down to 80's R&B, there really have been few simple and elequent guilty pleasures. While R&B acts, were heading towards the styles of a Pop sound, to compliment the appeal to the new generation of MTV, there were honestly those who were just strong enough to make great songs. That was honestly the case with Atlantic Starr. While in the 80's, they've still shown their strength in R&B, they haven't been able to capture the eyes with music lovers everywhere, where they were going to artists like Prince, Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston. But the syrpuy ballads still hadn't stopped them throughout the 80's and early 90's from making great songs, and now one of their most definitive hits collection has finally made it to Amazon.com's MP3 downloads.



The 2000 Ultimate Collection: Atlantic Starr is a simple and straight-forward of the R&B group through their biggest days on top of the charts. While there have been lesser-known collections like the 20th Century Masters: Millennium Collection for downloads, none of them are simple as dominant as this one. The collection includes all of their classics ranging from Adult Contemporary, to smooth R&B including their #1 standard Always, Touch A Four Leaf Clover, and their New Jack Swing dance song Love Crazy, as well as simple ballads like the overlooked Masterpiece and My First Love, which you can only find as a download on this album, on this music service, where others MP3 services like Rhapsody and Napster have overlooked some of these gems. The songs here have all been restored nicely, and re-introduce a classic guilty pleasure called R&B to a whole new generation of fans. While there were a few tracks that were sadly overlooked in the collection like My Sugar, All In The Name Of Love, and Unconditional Love, it still stands up as a strong Atlantic Starr album.



All in all, if you haven't heard of an Atlantic Starr album before, than I absolutely recommend you get the Atlantic Starr Ultimate Collection. It really stands out very well, and delivers a near flawless reflection of a group known for their melodies, rather than their hype. This is a unique masterpiece of an album, and you'll feel the secret lovers on a great collection.



Songs: B+



Price: B



Remastering: B+



Overall: B+"